6th January 2023 – (Kuala Lumpur) Russian daredevil couple Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus trespassed into the soon-to-be-completed 678m tall Merdeka 118 building, the 2nd highest building in the world and took a drone video on top of it. Their action attracted the local police to investigate into how they gained access into the tower. She said the security was tight at the tower and the two were even detected at some point causing them to hide. They had to hide a cement box for more than 20 hours after being discovered and they also ran out of drinking water during the first 5 hours. She said that she had to carry 15kg of backpack during the ordeal. Nikolau and Beerkus are currently under police investigation for trespassing on private property. Police have so far interview 9 personnels with regards to the incident. However, it is speculated the two should have left the country after they completed their daredevil feet.
Nikolau, who has been criticised by netizens for challenging laws of various countries by trespassing into buildings to take pictures and videos on top of them is using her popularity to make money by selling the images as NFTs. Rooftopping sometimes called roofing refers to the unsecured ascent of rooftops, cranes, antennas, smokestacks, etc., usually illegally. Rooftoppers usually take photos or videos and panoramic photographs—either a selfie by themselves or with the help of an assistant/accomplice crew from a distance. The practice of scaling skyscrapers often results in security crackdowns and arrests. Many people have died or been injured while rooftopping due to falling from a height. There was a rooftopping “craze” in Russia around 2017. It is an offshoot of urban exploring, but is not universally condoned among urban explorers due to high risk of possibility of fatal injures. Because it is often practised in the pursuit of making viral-ready videos or photos, it tends to result in heightened security and greater restriction against access to desirable exploration venues. In one report presented to American Educational Research Association in 1995 participants were suggested as thrill seekers who enjoy “high levels of stimulation and complexity” of thinking, although other theories explaining their motivation exist. In the case of Nikolau, her motive is clearly financial.
The image of her on top of the Merdeka 118 building has fetched a total of 3.10 ETH (3,882.78 USD) as of today. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been dead for a while now after the crypto market crashed in 2022. The market is still going, but only a fraction of what it was a year ago. According to Coindesk, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) exploded in 2021, thanks to soaring cryptocurrency prices that encouraged new traders to explore the space. According to data from Web3 developer backend Alchemy published in October, NFT trading volume fell 88% since the third quarter of last year. Disasters for the crypto industry – like the collapse of crypto payments ecosystem Terra, crypto lender Celsius, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and most recently Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire – have made an already bad situation worse. As the state of the crypto market remains uncertain in the year to come, projects need to work smarter – not harder – to succeed. NFT creators are also looking beyond art and are building entire worlds around their characters. In 2023, Yuga Labs is shifting its focus toward building The Otherside, a gamified, narrative-driven metaverse initiative that allows users to turn their NFTs into playable characters. A picture of a Russian social media influencer on top of building sold as a NFT definitely wouldn’t be able retain its value in the longer term. Good luck to the successful bidder who would get to keep a ‘unique’ picture of the social media influencer and can’t even hang it on top of the bed.
The narcissistic social media influencer often shares pictures of ONLY herself on her Instagram account without her boyfriend, Ivan Beerkus whereas her loving boyfriend shares pictures of them together on his own Instagram account regularly. This is because most users of social media (mostly men) only like to see women in tight or sexy clothings and not the other half, a no-brainer ‘scam’ to building hundreds of thousands of fans as sex sells.
